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Challenge Workshop 2013











Design Learning Challenge Workshop 2013
On August 24, 2013 workshop participants at Columbia College Chicago engaged in a STEM-based Design Learning Challenge as co-participants with design and technology educators at the University of Lincoln in England in real-time through Skype – our focus, A Honeybee's Life in the Year 2050.

The essence of the Design Learning Challenge Workshop 2013 was recently presented and produced by Andrew David, managing editor of Siren FM at the University of Lincoln, during a radio interview with Doris Wells-Papanek, Director of the Design Learning Network, along with University of Lincoln's Anne Chick, Professor of Design, and John Stocker, Senior Lecturer.

The workshop was also documented in real time on Tumblr by students from the Young Journalist Academy in the UK as a behind the scene blow-by-blow accounting of the Design Learning Challenge Workshop.


The Design Learning Challenge Workshop welcomed 40 highly motivated US K-12 educators from multiple disciplines (art, design, science, technology, engineering, math, and the humanities) to co-participate in a 5-hour Design Learning Challenge Workshop at Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois - while they simultaneously interacted with 40 like-minded educators located at the University of Lincoln in England. 


Workshop participants engaged in a STEM-based design learning challenge – as they teamed with design and technology educators at the University of Lincoln in England in real time through Skype. In addition, design practitioners and educators from the Industrial Designers Society of America’s 2013 International Conference joined the workshop as co-facilitators. 

Anchored in the Design Learning Process, both sets of workshop participants gained firsthand experience as they dug deep into a targeted and relevant student-centered problem to produce a human-centered, purposeful, creative, and innovative design solution. 


The overarching objective of the Design Learning Process is to invite students to develop the capacity to “see with their eyes” and “see with their minds” – to tap into their sense of curiosity and become aware of when they are making good choices and when they are not.
  • Students learn to discover and articulate problems worth solving, craft well-designed critical questions, establish targeted criteria, and strike a balance between creativity while using a systems approach

  • Divergent thinking serves as the catalyst for transforming a potentially flat problem solving process into a multi-dimensional and human-centered design learning experience

  • The goal is for learners to become creative problem solvers as they explore, design, navigate, and implement innovative design solutions that result in positive impact within the real world
Workshop content aligned with Common Core State Standards


Workshop Host in the United States | Columbia College Chicago
Art and Design Department



Workshop Host in the United Kingdom | University of Lincoln
School of Art and Design